Appearing in 1st story
Featured Characters:
- Carnage (Cletus Kasady) (Bonds to the Carnage Symbiote) (Death and Resurrection)
- Carnage Symbiote
Supporting Characters:
- Carnage (Carla Unger) (First appearance; dies) (Bonds to and loses the Carnage Symbiote)
- Karmer Penitentiary's Warden (Bonds to and loses the Carnage Symbiote) (First appearance; dies)
Antagonists:
- Dr. Jenner (First appearance; dies)
Other Characters:
- Spiderlings
- Spider-Man (Otto Octavius / "Peter Parker") (Mentioned)
- Morse Laboratories (First appearance)
- Unnamed scientists
- Will Unger (First appearance; dies)
- Numerous temporary hosts for the Carnage Symbiote
Locations:
- New Jersey
- Hague
- Kramer Penitentiary (First appearance)
- Hague
- Spider-Island 2
- New Mexico
- Albuquerque
- Morse Laboratories
- Albuquerque
Items:
- Toothbrush shiv
Synopsis for 1st story
In Kramer Penitentiary, New Jersey, several months after being separated from the Carnage symbiote, Cletus Kasady meets his his psychologist, Dr. Jenner. Cletus remarks that Jenner was able to get him transferred to the prison and admitted to general populace, remarking that the doctor has read his files and knows what he is. Dr. Jenner corrects Cletus, saying that he's gone through a great deal but has been a model prisoner since his separation from his symbiote. He notes that Cletus is beginning to distance himself from the symbiote when the serial killer interjects and refers to it as "the Other" rather than "his Other", and that the seperation and move to general populace must feel like freedom.
In the yard, Cletus walks past a trio of inmates, one of whom asks if he's really Carnage. One of the others sneers that Carnage was an unstoppable monster, but that Cletus is just a man and that men die in prison all the time. In Spider-Island 2, the Carnage symbiote attempts to escape its containment, screeching and snarling. The two Spiderlings on-guard remark on its behaviour, with one wondering if it's sick and the other remarking that it had been quiet until that point. The symbiote breaks free of its containment tank and begins prowling around the lab, causing the second guard to say it doesn't look sick, but rather like it's scared. In Kramer Penitentiary's laundry room, Cletus is approached by the inmates from before, one of whom stabs him from behind with a shiv made from a toothbrush. At that exact moment, the Carnage symbiote collapses, dying, to the shock of the Spiderlings. Watching it weakly attempt to break through the window, the first Spiderling remarks that their boss will be angry, while the second Spiderling says that since the symbiote is like an amoeba there should be viable cell samples and backups. The first Spiderling affirms this, saying that Otto sent samples of the symbiote out to laboratories as a sign of goodwill, but that they were chemically neutered. Behind them, the Carnage symbiote dies, unmourned by its guards.
In the Kramer Penitentiary hospital, Dr. Jenner, the prison medical doctor, and a nurse stand over Cletus. The medical doctor tells Jenner that Cletus should have never been brought to the facility, seeing as how they're not equipped to handle the complications of such a high-profile inmate. Concluding that Cletus is unlikely to survive the night, the medical doctor leaves. Cletus begins muttering that something is wrong with an unspecified female and that she's hurt and needs him. Jenner realizes he's sensing the symbiote, but Cletus says that the symbiote was screaming but has gone quiet now, leaving only the kitten-like mewling of its last-remaining offshoot.
At Morse Laboratories in New Mexico, Dr. Carla Unger — one of the scientists assigned to study a sample of the Carnage symbiote — stands distracted as her colleagues leave for the night. They invite her for happy hour, but she declines, saying she wants to run a few more tests. Her colleagues leave, teasing her that the symbiote isn't a pet. Alone, she states that if the symbiote was a pet they'd be able to sue Spider-Man for animal cruelty, complaining that they're supposed to be studying its regenerative capabilities and yet he injected it with chemicals to inhibit those same processes. She takes a tissue sample of the symbiote to study under a microscope just as her smartphone rings. She picks it up, and is berated by her abusive husband Will, who angrily demands to know where she is. Carla responds that she's still at work, causing Will to launch into a tirade about how he's sick of her excuses and that all he wants is to come home from work to a hot meal, snapping that if Carla is so smart she'd stay in the kitchen where she belongs. Resonating with her anger, the tissue sample of the symbiote shatters the microscope slide and enters her body through her eye when she returns to look at it. Carla immediately incinerates the main sample of the symbiote, returning home. Will, in the process of making dinner, angrily demands to know where she's been when he called over two hours ago. Carla, looking ill, ignores him and heads into the bathroom, Will berating and threatening her if she ignores him. As Carla leans over the sink, the Carnage symbiote speaks to her, asking if she's going to let him talk to them like this. Giving in to her rage, Carla allows it to take her over and rips the door to shreds. Pinning her husband to the ground, Carla — transformed into Carnage — snarls that she's going to take her time killing him and enjoy it, not because of the symbiote turning her into a monster, but because she wants to, gleefully remarking that she's been married to him for a long time and that it's time he started bringing her some joy.
In his hospital bed, Cletus snaps awake screaming Carnage's name. Jenner tells the nurse to not intervene. When the nurse states that Cletus is going into a seizure and might tear open his wound, Jenner retorts that Cletus needs to see the other side of this. At a gas station, a TV report remarks on a destructive act of vandalism at Morse Laboratories, speculating that it was the result of animal rights activists, who had targeted the facility previously due to animal testing being carried out there, before naming Carla Unger as a person of interest due to the discovery of her husband's mutilated corpse. Carla walks down an asile, asking the symbiote why they're there. Staggering, she states she can feel it consuming her from the inside-out, attracting the attention of the cashier. As he moves to help her, she vomits out the Carnage symbiote, which bonds to him and takes him over. Carla asks if it's done with her and letting her go, and the symbiote replies that it's sick and poisoned, and needs to feed off new bodies to regain its strength. Stating that Carla has done well and that she's free, it kills her and leaves.
At the penitentiary hospital, Jenner tells Cletus that he can stop holding on and die a man's death, free from the symbiote's hold on him. Revealing his true colors, Jenner sneers that Cletus is nothing without the Carnage symbiote, and that in his weak and pitiful state there's no way it would want to return to him. Picking up a pillow, Jenner states that he knows the symbiote is coming and that Cletus can sense it, saying that when it arrives it will find him - a worthy host, and not some bed-ridden has-been - waiting to bond with it and that Cletus will be dead. Smothering Cletus to death, Jenner remarks that he'll take good care of the symbiote. Jenner remarks to himself that the symbiote must feel like a starving man who can't keep down food, searching for a host that can sustain it, and that it only thinks it wants Cletus but with that option eliminated it needs him.
The Carnage symbiote jumps from host to host on a cross-country trip, consuming them from the inside-out to regain its strength and killing them when it finds a new host. Taking over the warden of Kramer Penitentiary, it drives to the prison, where it learns that Cletus is dead. Furiously storming through the prison, the warden - under the symbiote's control - snaps for the doctors and guards to leave him and enters the morgue. The warden begs for the symbiote to show him mercy, having done what it wanted and stating that he has family. Livid, the symbiote snarls that it had family too, and that he locked its family up and let them be killed. Jenner interrupts, saying that Cletus was only the symbiote's adopted family and that it can always adopt a new one, proclaiming that he has dreamed of being bonded to it for a long time. The symbiote interrupts his monologue by striking him with its tongue, furiously demanding to know who Jenner thinks he is, and then leaves the warden's body to bond to Cletus's corpse, resuscitating him.
As Jenner stammers that it can't be possible and that Cletus is dead, Carnage looms over him and asks if he looks dead to him. Suffocating Jenner with the symbiote, Cletus states that he and the Carnage symbiote are incomplete and incapable of survival without each other, but when together they go beyond being host and symbiote and nothing can cut away, burn, or smother their bond. Carnage proceeds to slaughter the guards, doctors, and inmates until he finds the man who stabbed him. The inmate tells Carnage that it wasn't personal and that Jenner hired him to do it. Carnage says that he already took care of Jenner, admitting that he likes the inmate's style of killing people before impaling him with blade-tipped tentacles.
Having killed every last guard and inmate, Carnage remarks that the massacre felt sweet, like old times. Proclaiming that there's so much lost time to make up for and that the world is full of possibilities, Carnage exits the prison exclaiming to let old times come again.
Solicit Synopsis
Cletus Kasady is behind bars! The Carnage symbiote is in quarantine! But we all know thats never going to last, right?
- Cletus has been evaluated and imprisoned and even lobotomized! Carnage has been sampled and cloned and poked and prodded.
- But they've had enough! It's time to get the band back together! A return to bloody, murderous form for the deadliest killer in the Marvel Universe!